Hollywood, and the movie making business, is an interesting world at times. In the last dozen or so years, it's become de rigueur to talk about "rebooting a franchise", re-envisioning the storyline of a franchise character back to its roots, and taking that character in a new direction. From the camp of George Clooney's Batman to Christian Bale's Dark Knight take on the character, or to the latest revisiting of the Tronverse, Hollywood has looked to reinvent itself based on the stories it has already established.
So it's kind of Hollywood for me to say "This ain't your fathers' Avatar" (if, perchance, your father happened to be James Cameron), when it comes to talking about how Avaya is "rebooting" the web conference experience with the latest version of Avaya web.alive™, our cloud-based, on-demand, immersive web collaboration solution for businesses.
I'll never do web.alive justice in a mere blog item, because it really is experiential - until you've spent time walking around and interacting with individuals, small groups or large scale interactions, it's too easy to dismiss the idea of an immersive collaboration space as a "toy for the younger kids" rather than as a serious business tool.
So, rather than try to put into words what the eyes and ears are better off experiencing on their own, I thought I'd share one of the small "ah-ha!" moments I got from using the technology as part of Avaya's own internal sessions.
Have you ever joined a conference call when there were a large number of people in the main room, and several others on the conference bridge? And then sat around waiting for the actual meeting to start? (Of course, you have. Probably on a weekly, if not daily basis...). My own personal frustrations with this sort of situation are thus:
- There's usually someone in the room that I've been trying to catch up with, but it's difficult to break through all the in-room cross-chatter ("Hey Jim, nice tan. Been out playing golf lately?") in order to get the attention of that one specific individual.
- And if you do, your conversation is pretty much out there in the open for anyone on the bridge or in the room to listen in ("Mary, I've been meaning to catch up with you regarding that request for more funding for your project. Dave really wants to shut it down instead...")
- It seems like any time the room gets boisterous, someone always hits the mute button. So now, I can't even say "Dave, can you schedule time tomorrow for us to talk about Mary's request?," because no one is gonna hear me anyway.
- And if you want to talk to someone else on the bridge itself, forget about it... you have just about zero chance of getting their attention (no matter what the room participants may be doing), simply because you have no way to cut across all the ongoing chatter.
So what's the big deal about web.alive? Its' spatial 3D audio capability is what grabs me... if for no other reasons than once I (and all the other participants) enter the virtual environment, we are all on equal footing when it comes to high-quality, individualized interactions. Using my computers' mouse, I can simply "walk" around the conference room (or atrium, or waiting area), locate Mary's avatar, and proceed to have what is essentially a private conversation, while keeping a virtual eye on the rest of the meeting attendees, looking for clues that we are now ready to start the formal meeting. It's just like the real world - If you were in the conference room, you'd catch Mary's eye, perhaps nod your head towards the back of the room, and have a quiet, private conversation, while still recognizing when the meeting is ready to start for all participants.
I've held my team meetings in web.alive, and as a business leader, I actually felt more engaged with my team (almost all of whom are remote workers from my corporate headquarters office). I could see their attention and I could watch the interact with one another. Even when I was far enough away in the virtual environment so as to not be able to overhear them, I could see their avatars moving around and turning to face different peers as they spoke and attention shifted between people. I'm actually looking forward to exploring some of the new analytics capabilities in web.alive release 2.5 to better understand communications interactions amongst my team, as well as understanding how I can track ROI of interactions that take place in the virtual environment over to other parts of my DevConnect program, such as membership recruitment, marketing programs, etc.
Avaya web.alive delivers high quality voice capabilities, including the capability to "dial out" of the virtual environment into a more traditional audio bridge (which makes it easy for individuals who may be mobile or in locations where they cannot get internet access to continue to participate at the same level they might otherwise today). And it offers the ability to present traditional web conferencing, video and desktop sharing capabilities. But it wraps it in a package of an immersive, interactive environment that truly re-invents how collaboration can be accomplished.
I'm actually launching a customized web.alive environment for my DevConnect community to use, expanding the opportunities for my developers to interact with one another, crossing enterprise and organizational boundaries, in ways that traditional forum board question/response interactions simply cannot provide. We'll be using our space (based on one of several basic web.alive floor plan templates, which we've started to customizing for our own needs) for small group meetings, program updates and training sessions for up to 150 simultaneous participants. And being that my audience is a technical one (being primarily software developers), I'm looking forward to seeing what sort of customizations they come up with using the latest web.alive SDKs.
Experience web.alive for yourself by exploring our demo environments (or my DevConnect one, if you happen to be a DevConnect member)..And when you are ready to make your next team call a truly memorable one, get your own environment with introductory pricing of just $49/month for up to 8 participants.
And the "reboot" element? Next time you are on a traditional conference call, divide up the participants into teams and ask them to work in those groups to discuss an issue and then come back to summarize their conclusions. It's pretty much impossible to do this with traditional audio and web conferencing solutions. But web.alive makes it almost absurdly simple to break up into small groups, wander over to a corner or into another virtual conference room, discuss the issue and create recommendations, and then return to share these with the entire group. Almost as if everyone had actually been together in the same conference room to begin with.
And after all, isn't that what web conferencing was supposed to make it seem like in the first place?
"Brilliant! Amazing concept! This is truly above and beyond any interactive website, web meeting, or virtual trade show I've ever attended. Welcome to the 21st Century of interactive communication." -- Sean Sammler, Sales Consultant at Symon Communications, commenting on his experience in the Avaya web.alive environment for the DevConnect Program.Posted 10 Feb 2011 at 09:28 AM
Comments
Jon, You've done a great job at explaining the benefits of Web.Alive in a way that almost every business person can relate to-- the frustrations and limitations we all feel while spending much of our lives on conference calls.
You briefly referred to training and I want to give an additional plug for Web.Alive as a training tool. We are using it for a year-long executive development program with all of Avaya's senior leaders and will soon expanding the use in our Learning.Alive environment for all managers and new hires. It is spooky how comparable it is to classroom training in providing the forum to balance both lecture style and group interaction, without any training costs. And, the multi-media capability of being able to easily use video, slides or desktop sharing and wipeboarding makes it incredibly flexible and practical.
In addition to the power of effective collaboration, the fun element can't be overlooked either. It seems to keep people more engaged when they can do things like change how their avatar looks, jump up and down, or run around. Guilty as charged: I've been having more fun at work since spending much of my time connecting in Web.Aive over the phone!
JON RESPONDED:
Posted 14 Feb 2011 at 12:51 PMhi.
great post.
Posted 24 Feb 2011 at 01:52 AM